The world and character models are subtly touched up to deliver smaller details and a little more realism. This Remedy Entertainment production looked great back in the day, and it still looks good today, but the remaster efforts aren't enough to fully hide the game's Xbox 360 roots. What happened here? Which moment is a dream? Thoughts like these flare up through most of this dark tale. An early sequence where Alan dives into a lake is an excellent example of the narrative's dramatic shifts: The second his hands hit the water, he awakens in his car, blood dripping from his forehead. That feeling of not being able to trust your eyes or even Alan's actions hold the narrative in a tense and highly entertaining state for most of the journey.
Standees of him holding his latest book are scattered about in the oddest of places, a visual cue that all is not as it seems. The entire story unfolds in the small Washington port town of Bright Falls – a place Alan and his beloved wife Alice travel to try to help Alan find his writing pulse again. My understanding of what happens is likely radically different from yours – making it a hell of a game to discuss. The story draws heavy inspiration from the many works of Stephen King and David Lynch's Twin Peaks and is open to interpretation. The strong narrative pulse makes this 11-year old game feel somewhat timeless, even with gameplay showing some rust.Īlan's story boils with intensity from the moment you meet him, trapped in a strange nightmare that leads him to a lighthouse. Many of the words you read foreshadow terrible fates or show how Alan is spiraling into an abyss. It has many of the genre's trappings like carefully placed jump scares, ax-wielding murders lurking in the shadows, and unsightly supernatural threats, but the true terror comes from words written on pieces of paper and thoughts expressed by protagonist Alan Wake.Īlan is a writer lost in his stories, and it's up to the player to figure out what's real and what's a fabrication. We need more games like Alan Wake – a horror experience that scares you, but not in the ways we often see.
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